In the world of materials science, sometimes main discoveries can be found in unexpected places. While working on the resistivity of a type of delafossite—PdCoO2—researchers at EPFL’s Laboratory of Quantum Materials discovered that the electrons in their sample did not behave entirely as expected. When a magnetic field was applied, the electrons retained signatures of their wave-like nature, which could be…
Tag: materials science
5G Obliterates Your Phone Battery, But a Power-Saving Fix Is Coming
It’s no secret that 5G networks drain battery. “To rectify that grim side effect, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Lille in France have developed a new radio-frequency switch they say is 50 times more energy efficient than the current solid-state switches,” reports Popular Mechanics. From the report: The solution is actually rooted right in…
D-Wave: Quantum Computing and Machine Learning Are ‘Extremely Well Matched’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Following D-Wave’s announcement of Leap 2, a new version of its quantum cloud service for building and deploying quantum computing applications, VentureBeat had the opportunity to sit down with Murray Thom, D-Wave’s VP of software and cloud services. We naturally talked about Leap 2, including the improvements the company hopes it will bring…
New multiplatform photon switch for application in quantum technology
An international team led by the Institute of Materials Science (ICMUV) of the University of Valencia has developed an optical (quantum) switch that modifies the emission properties of photons, the particles of electromagnetic radiation. The new device works with ultra-fast switching times and very low energy consumption and, in comparison to other designs, it can be implemented in a variety of…
IBM’s New 53-qubit Quantum Computer is Its Biggest Yet
IBM’s 14th quantum computer is its most powerful so far, a model with 53 of the qubits that form the fundamental data-processing element at the heart of the system. From a report: The system, available online to quantum computing customers in October, is a big step up from the last IBM Q machine with 20 qubits and should help advance the…
New Cause of Cell Aging Discovered: Senescent Cells Stop Producing Nucleotides
New research from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering could be key to our understanding of how the aging process works. The findings potentially pave the way for better cancer treatments and revolutionary new drugs that could vastly improve human health in the twilight years. ScienceDaily reports: “To drink from the fountain of youth, you have to figure out where the…
DNA Data Storage Is Closer Than You Think
“Life’s information-storage system is being adapted to handle massive amounts of information,” reports Scientific American, reports Scientific American, calling it “an alternative to hard drives” and noting that DNA “is already routinely sequenced (read), synthesized (written to) and accurately copied with ease. “DNA is also incredibly stable, as has been demonstrated by the complete genome sequencing of a fossil horse that…
After Decades of Hunting, Physicists Claim They’ve Made Quantum Material from Depths of Jupiter
A team of researchers have posted a paper in which they claim to have achieved a holy grail of materials science: creating metallic hydrogen in a laboratory. Source: https://www.livescience.com/65827-metallic-hydrogen-claim.html
Physicists take a step closer to building a graphene-based topological insulator
In 2005, condensed matter physicists Charles Kane and Eugene Mele considered the fate of graphene at low temperatures. Their work led to the discovery of a new state of matter dubbed a “topological insulator,” which would usher in a new era of materials science. …
Phonon-mediated quantum state transfer and remote qubit entanglement
Quantum information platforms are based on qubits that talk to each other and photons (optical and microwave) are the carrier of choice—to date, to transfer quantum states between qubits. However, in some solid-state systems, acoustic vibrational properties of the material themselves known as phonons can be advantageous. In a recent study published on Science Advances, B. Bienfait and colleagues at the…